INTERNATIONAL Asia Pacific and Middle East airports reported year-on-year passenger traffic increases of +8.4% and +3.8% respectively, according to new figures from ACI Asia-Pacific.
In Asia -Pacific, domestic passenger travels continued to stimulate growth in India with many airports reporting passenger traffic growth in excess of +20% compared to December 2015. Top performers included: Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International in Calcutta (+37.7%), Goa International (+24.4%) and Kempegowda International Airport Bengaluru in Bangalore (+23.6%).
In China Kunming Changshui International was the best performer, up +15.4% year-on-year, ahead of Xi’an Xianyang International (+15.1%) and Tianjin Binhai International (+14.8%).
Elsewhere in the region, Kuala Lumpur International maintained its recovery momentum from a period of slow growth since 2014, posting +14.6% growth year-on-year. Hong Kong International was the only major hub in the region to record a decline (-0.8%) in October. However, that was caused largely by one-off flight reduction arrangements to accommodate the airport’s transition to a new air traffic management system.
The pace of passenger traffic growth in the Middle East appears to be slowing down against the backdrop of a more challenging market environment, ACI Asia-Pacific noted. Dubai International, the region’s largest hub, handled +2.7% more passengers than in October last year. Hamad International in Doha turned in an impressive +16.7% increase.
| Top three performing airports by size category* | ||||
| Passengers | Freight | |||
| > 40M | 25M to 40M | 15M to 25M | 5M to 15M | |
| Beijing +5.1% | Xi’an +15.1% | Seoul Gimpo +3.7% | Calcutta +37.7% | Hong Kong +7.1% |
| Tokyo Haneda +5.7% | Tokyo Narita +4.5% | Kansai +5.0% | Osaka Itami +2.2% | Shanghai Pudong +11.3% |
| Dubai +2.7% | Manila +3.8% | Brisbane +0.6% | Busan +9.6% | Incheon +10.6% |
Source: ACI Asia-Pacific; *Size categories refer to the annual passenger traffic in the last 12 months
